Watch Kevin Durant closely the next time he takes the floor for Team USA at the Olympics. He lurks, prowls, waits, and then strikes—relentlessly and without mercy. As long as he’s on your side, it’s a thrilling spectacle.
Yes, the Slim Reaper is back. Already the United States’ career Olympic scoring leader, Durant added to his international legend Sunday evening. Playing in his first game since the playoffs due to a lingering calf injury, Durant poured in 21 first-half points to help the United States shut down a frenetic Serbian offense and claim a 110-84 win in their first game of the 2024 Olympics.
“Maybe more than any player I’ve ever been around, when he comes back from a long absence, you don’t notice it,” Team USA head coach Steve Kerr said after the game. “He’s so skilled, and he just looked like he was in mid-season form after not playing in a real basketball game for a couple of months. Pretty incredible.”
Durant sat out Team USA’s entire Olympic exhibition run, and now it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that they struggled mightily over those five games. His appearance late in the first quarter was a timely one, helping to settle a U.S. team that initially struggled to contain the whirling Serbian attack led by three-time and defending NBA MVP Nikola Jokić.
“He’s an impossible cover,” Kerr said. “The strength of our team is our depth, and we’re going to — we’ve got three guys who can guard him. And that was the approach, just rotate guys onto him and cross your fingers because he’s a brilliant player.”
For a team full of its own MVPs and NBA champions, the United States looked awfully rattled early in the first quarter of its first Olympic game. Kerr started LeBron James, Steph Curry, Devin Booker, Joel Embiid, and Jrue Holiday, and that esteemed crew almost immediately got into trouble.
LeBron James, fresh off his stint leading the United States up the Seine during Friday’s Opening Ceremony, scored America’s first points on a breakaway dunk. But the real hero of the first half was Durant, who checked in with 2:33 remaining and proceeded to drain his first 3-point shot just 14 seconds later.
Durant’s first run lasted just over six minutes across the first and second quarters, but he threw down 14 necessary, momentum-altering points—twice as many as any other player on either team when he left the court. He wrapped the first half with five points in the final 36 seconds, including a fadeaway as time expired that left him flat on his back and the United States up 58-49.
“We wanted to limit his minutes and just ease him back in,” Kerr said. “He didn’t ease himself back in. He was brilliant.”
The second half was sloppy but inevitable, as the United States continued to increase its lead and contain the frantic Serbian squad. Durant led all scorers with 23 points, and when he exited the game with 5:33 remaining, he received a respectful hand from the crowd. James finished with 21 points, 9 assists, and 8 rebounds in a dominant all-around showing. Jokić led Serbia with 20 points and 8 assists.
The United States now moves on to play South Sudan on Wednesday, a team that gave the Americans some unexpected trouble during the exhibition run. But this time around, the Americans will have Durant in the lineup, and that alone could make all the difference.
“I was tired, I’m not going to lie to you,” Durant said. “My lungs were getting used to that. I feel like I’m testing it again, but it felt good to make some shots.”
—
Photo Credit: Oleksiy Naumov / Shutterstock.com